Why I’m Excited about Online Gaming with Xbox One

This morning, we announced a new beta program for Xbox 360 called Enforcement United, that lets Xbox Live members like you get involved to help make Xbox Live a more fun, fair and safer place for everyone to play. Xbox Live is the best online gaming experience and now we’re enabling every member to help us make it even better. We also unveiled Xbox Community Level, a website where Xbox Live members can earn rewards and recognition for participating in the Enforcement United beta and the long-standing Xbox Live Ambassadors program.

It’s a great way for Xbox Live members to engage with their community, but it’s not the only element we’re bringing to the table. Here are a few core features for Xbox One, developed specifically with the Xbox Live community in mind, that make online gaming better:

Xbox Live Multiplayer on Xbox One You’ve told us that Xbox Live is the best service for online multiplayer gaming, and we’re continuing that tradition on Xbox One, where we’ve made the multiplayer experience the way we all want it: smart, quick and intuitive. What makes Xbox Live revolutionary on Xbox One? It’s the power. We’re investing in more than 300,000 servers to supercharge Xbox Live. With a wealth of new features and the stable service you need, Xbox Live on Xbox One offers you THE multiplayer experience to game with all of your friends.

Better Matchmaking Earlier this summer, I talked with Micheal Dunn, Program Manager on Xbox Live Services, about the new Xbox One matchmaking system called Smart Match. The key here is that you no longer have to sit and wait for a game to match you with other players. With Smart Match on Xbox One, I can put in my match request, then switch over and catch up on the posts on Xbox One or watch TV or a movie. When a match is found, Xbox One tells me so I can re-enter the game instantly. Smart Match also matches you with players like yourself, making your multiplayer gaming even more tailored to your game style.

Enhanced Reputation and Enforcement The Enforcement United program will complement Smart Match’s new reputation system on Xbox One. We’ve updated our proprietary algorithms for monitoring gaming behavior on Xbox Live, expanded scoring elements, engaged our enforcement team and created requirements for games to take reputation into account. The new reputation system is built on a model that accounts for how you behave and whether you positively or negatively affect others. As long as other players or the games you play are not negatively reporting you or your actions, you’ll maintain a positive reputation. Ways to weaken your reputation, for example, would be to join a competitive, veteran area and try to disrupt games, or join a casual play area and be a griefer. We’ve also worked hard to ensure this new system can’t be manipulated by groups of griefers. Our goal is to create a safe and fun place for gamers without BS from trolls and spammers. Casual gamers might not even notice that this new reputation system is in place, but trust me, serious online gamers will be glad it is.

New Achievements System Achievements have always added that extra layer of accomplishment, challenge and reward for Xbox Live members, and we’re excited to continue that tradition on Xbox One. We’ve introduced a new kind of Achievement called a Challenge, where players and friends can work to accomplish time-based objectives resulting in winning cool free stuff. Developers can also now continue to grow and expand their achievements over time, so you have more opportunities to build up your score without being limited to the achievements on the disk. Don’t forget, your Gamerscore will also carry over from Xbox 360.

Game DVR, UploadWith Game DVR and Upload Studio, you can create and add epic video clips to share with your Xbox Live friends. With Xbox Live on Xbox One, you now have new ways to record, edit, share and broadcast the best moments from your games. Game DVR lets you record your favorite highlights. You can then use Upload Studio to customize and show off your big victories, including adding your own voiceovers by using Kinect. You’ll have a number of custom skins to choose from to make your clip stand out even more and you’ll have slow motion and other editing tools. It’s your own editing bay for the documentary of your gaming life.

These are just a FEW of the thing that make gaming great on Xbox One. There are lots more to come, so be sure to stay tuned for more exciting details as we march towards the launch of Xbox One.

“Current Xbox Live Ambassadors who meet qualifying criteria can register now to get involved in the Enforcement United beta. We plan to make the program available to broader Xbox Live members when it officially launches in the coming months.”

There has to be a way of making Community Playdates easier to manage. For example: Major Nelson’s Community Game Nights, One of Swords’ Playing With Swords, or Giant Bomb’s Thursday Night Throwdowns. Today, the community manager has to go through loads of messages and friend requests. Streamlining this where the system splits the players into groups, rotating them with the site hosting the event so that they all get a chance to play, could be really cool.

What’s stopping people from ‘trolling’ the Enhanced Reputation and Enforcement system. People can give you bad rep just because you beat them at a game or because they think it’s funny. Sounds like a good system on paper but it can still be abused causing bad rep when you don’t deserve it.

Yeah I used to have a really positive rep, but since playing CoD my rep is in the toilet and I don’t ever talk trash or annoy anyone but I always get accused of cheating when Im not. I can’t help I t I’m good at the game.

Yes, the reputation system on the Xbox 360 is pretty much useless. Even the worst people have 5 stars. It should just be removed from GamerTags, just like the Zone. Replace that info with games completed or games played MS.

The new system is supposed to be smarter and more dynamic. Your rep will improve over time if you don’t get negative reps. In addition, it will look at other factors, such as if another person constantly gives others bad reps, it may give lower the value of what he submits.

Honestly, it would be trivial from a programming perspective to make note of how often someone gives a negative rep for someone after losing to them, or when someone constantly gives negative reps to an entire other team.

This is what Major is describing. How well it will work in practice is unknown yet. But let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Great. Can we get a commitment that download speeds will increase when we purchase games from the marketplace? Or how about a way to pre-order from the marketplace and have the games download at midnight?

Hey Major, one question. I’m pretty sure that I’m getting Xbox1 on day one. Nevertheless, they are still some games I’ll be playing on my 360(Fable Anniversary)…Is my gamer tag going to work on both consoles? Or is going to be a big hassle to move my gamer tag between them? Just wondering. Thanks.

I’ve been saying that for years. Not only that, if we can have virtually unlimited friends, and a bunch decides to log on within seconds of one another, that will be a lot of “******* has signed on. Will there be a way to turn that off and not other notifications? I do love the idea of categorizing your friends.

Yes but what you don’t know is that we have practically been cut off. We cant trade with anyone really. We give oil for basic necessities. And at a very costly price for us. If we even trade for cash it mustn’t be a currency of a country that sanctions us ($€£¥).
But hell right? Who cares?

Matchmaking can not work as long as you don’t have more information about the players, something like a “xbox live social network” is required before you can start to make a matchmaking.

For example, i dont want to play with children or people who dont speak german or english.

One of the few games i played online was burnout paradise. There you had a lot of goals to achieve, for example doing things with 5, 6, 7 or 8 people online in the game.

I have been hosting the game, but i had not the necessary optinons to make it fun: i was not able to block the game for new entrys while doing a 5 people goal so suddenly someone appeard and we have been 6 people, goal not reached. I was also not able to throw people out of the game, who did not cooperate. So it was more luck than fun to fulfill some goals.

If you want to do matchmaking, first of all some data should be collected, like languages spoken, age and stuff. and there should always be a host who controls a game channel, that’s better than a stupid rep systems where old mistakes are never deleted.

And talking about the achievments, could you please count online and offline seperately? Would be nice, i dont like online play because of some problems with matchmaking and all the boring multiplayer games so i would prefere to have, letz say, 1000 gs points online and 1000 gs ponits offline per game so you dont feel so uncomplete just because you dont have the online scores because you dont like it.

let me give you a complete different example to explain the problem. i had an amiga computer more than 20 years ago. on amiga, there have not been scaleable fonts, but one word processor had it’s own scalable font technology. then i moved on to pc, using windows 3.1 which had true type fonts and so all programs had scalable fonts available, not only one single piece of software.

Online gaming has to do with people and for organizing people, social networks are the best option. if this feature would be available from xbox one, every game can benefit.

Some part of a social network are already there, you have accounts, you have chat, why dont they bring this together with more detailled profiles, the ability to create clubs which you can join, such a social network connected to the xbox would make matchmaking much better and easier.

why should every game developer invent the wheel again and again? as far as i understand, it is part of an os to provide basic functionality which programs can use.

They’ve already spoken about a lot of these features targeting age groups, language, etc. becoming available with the better Matchmaking system on Xbox One. You should search out those announcements to get up to speed. 🙂 They don’t need a separate social network when they already have accounts and data they need built into the existing LIVE network. They are just going to leverage that information better with Xbox One.

The reputation seems to be aimed at A’Holes, separating the bad from the good. If you’re a jerk, you play with other jerks, genius! People seem to care about others knowing their jerks, so maybe this will build a better online experience. I’ve been on Live since 2002, and over the last 5 years when playing most multiplayer games I mute the entire room. Simply because their are way too many A’Holes on Live!

Please tell me this system will allow me to stop playing with kids online. I cannot stand 10-17 year olds whining about what guns are for looting in BL2 or chomping at their chips in CoD or trying to get me to join schoolyard clans in Halo.
I’m sure there are some mature folk in the younger generation on xbl, but the fact of the matter is that I don’t notice them because the high-pitched loud group is all I remember.
I hope this system works, because right now, I only desire to play with people I personally set up games with. And they aren’t always available.
Thank you for constantly updating your blog Major! Will there be a sales chart for the next two weeks coming in soon?

I knew you had it in you Microsoft. With all the mixed announcements in May/June, this has to be the best information I’ve seen. Thanks Maj. Nelson, Microsoft is finally making contact with the ball. Keep it up!

It’s all sounding good to me. I like how I can do something while I wait for a match to start. Even just checking my email in snap mode or something. Ive always thought it would be cool if i could multitask on on the 360 while i wait for a match. And i really like how the Xbox One info is being communicated so much better now too. There has been a lot of great information coming out and Everything is sounding so good. I’m feeling more and more excited about picking up an Xbox One on release day.

I wouldn’t hold your breath on that one, look how long it took before the 360 and PS3 got price cuts. And the WiiU has yet to see one and that thing is running on life support right now. You will probably see value added to the console such as larger hard drives and bundled games before any price cut after launch, much like this past generation.

The site looks pretty broken at the moment – it doesn’t allow me to join the Ambassador program even though I have over 1,500 Gamerscore (35,000-odd) and reports a ‘sign in error’ when I try to apply for the Enforcer one. Any ideas Major Nelson?